Page:Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 CAN.djvu/18

 faded and vanished in the strange ochre radiance that filled the room. And Tethra laughed, his dark, mocking face triumphant.

"Said I not I was prepared?" he taunted. "Not thus easily do you catch me, Lugh. The shape-sending trick will not avail you now."

"The Tuatha know other tricks," Lugh said ominously. "You hover on the brink of an abyss. Tethra. Send Fand and the Gateway back to us or it is war between Tuathans and Formorians that means your death."

ETHRA laughed mockingly. "Will threats win that war for you? You are already defeated and you know it, Lugh. Long have you kept us barred out of that Earth from which you drove us. Now we go back there, for now we have the Gateway and soon we will have its secret."

Fand spoke softly in her silver voice. "They will never have it, lord Lugh! Fear not that any torture can force it from me."

"There are tortures of the mind that can transcend the terrors of the flesh," Tethra said smoothly. "And I know how to wield them, Fand."

"Aye," said Lugh darkly, "there are tortures of the mind. But two can play at using them, Tethra."

"Bring on your forces and weapons if you so dare," Tethra challenged contemptuously. "My warriors have long desired to slay you and your lords, including that hulking Dagda who now skulks behind you."

"It is not Dagda who is behind me," said Lugh quietly. "It is one who is not of the Tuatha at all."

And Lugh's image suddenly moved aside, revealing Brian Cullan's mailed figure to their gaze.

Tethra leaped up like a man stricken by appalling force. For a moment, as he stared at Cullan, his face was livid.

"Cuchulain!" he cried hoarsely. "Cuchulain, here from the outerworld!"

And from Fand came a glad, silver cry. "Cuchulain returned! I knew you would come back !"

She ran forward with wild gladness in her face, as Tethra still stood rigidly, stunnedly staring at Cullan's image.

Lugh made a sudden movement. To Cullan, the whole throne-room seemed suddenly to vanish as he was withdrawn from it with incredible swiftness. He felt himself whirled back through darkness, and suddenly was standing again in the copper cube in Lugh's chamber at Thandara.

He stood unsteadily, still wild with emotion at his glimpse of Fand and her peril, as Lugh briefly told Dagda and the other of their glimpse of her.

Cullan interrupted, his voice hoarse. "We've got to do something to get her out of there, quickly!"

"We will," Lugh said quietly. "Tethra knows now that I have weapons against him."

"That devil didn't fear your weapons," Cullan said harshly. He added, puzzledly, "Though Tethra seemed almost to fear when he saw me, seemed to know me. Yet he has never seen me before."

"He mistook you for your ancestor Cuchulain—and he knew Cuchulain loug ago when he and his Fomorians invaded Earth," said Lugh. The Tuatha king added, broodingly, "And seeing you made Tethra fear, indeed."

Cullan was too agonized by apprehension for Fand to ponder the dark mystery 3—I